Softwaremacosopen-sourceutilities
Keypause turns off your Mac keyboard long enough to clean it
The free, open-source menu bar app blocks keys on a timer while leaving the mouse working. It currently requires Apple silicon and macOS 14 or later.
A keyboard wipe is an excellent way to send a chat message nobody can translate. Keypause gives the cloth a window in which the keys can do nothing, rather than making the person cleaning the keyboard work around every accidental shortcut.
The developer’s README promises “Every key off,” including shortcuts, function keys and media keys. A menu bar action or Control-Option-Command-K starts the pause. Its small countdown window includes an Unlock button, so the mouse remains a way back in.
Thirty seconds may be enough. The timer can run up to ten minutes for anyone who looks between the keycaps and discovers that the keyboard has apparently been keeping a second copy of lunch. A sleepy keycap character called Kip waits through a sky changing from night to dawn. Cleaning software apparently gets a mascot now; at least this one’s job is to keep quiet.
The install notes also say the app isn’t notarized because the developer has no paid Apple developer account. Releases and a Homebrew cask are linked from the repository. That limitation belongs beside the download, where a reader can decide whether this tiny convenience belongs on their machine.
The next useful compatibility detail would be what happens across a reader’s exact collection of external keyboards. For now, the project offers a small answer to a very ordinary nuisance, with its platform requirements and permissions in view.